Necropolis

Is there a place where forsaken words go after we have discarded them? An “elephant graveyard” perhaps where all of the sentences that could have been a part of something bigger, something...beautiful, but didn’t, go to die in silence, forever deleted from existence, forever unheard? These sentences lie in the rain like the rusted, skeletal remains of junked out 747’s. The seats, torn and covered in cobwebs, nestled in its belly basked in quiet darkness; the words, forever staring forward with a ghastly, hollow expression of loss and hopelessness, their tray tables forever in an upright and locked position.

Or rather, it isn’t a graveyard at all. Rather, it is a city: a dead city… a necropolis. This city, at first glance, from a great distance, appears normal, with billowing smoke and towers rising up into the heavens. However, as you travel closer you may notice a complete lack of life or movement; an overbearing stillness, except for the winds, that always howl and race in rage. As you travel even closer you may notice decay. The buildings crumble and the windows lack glass. Garbage, refuse, and rock lay scattered in heaps along the streets. Torn flags, remembering happier days once proud and colorful, sway and bow and dance to the gray clouds in a perpetual grotesque dance - a dance begging for sun, for a respite from the acid rain, even if it’s the briefest of instants. However, the true terror dawns upon entering the city itself. Past the gates, that rise 50 stories, ancient and rusted, you will see swarms of them, thousands...no millions...of words, once beautiful, trudging along the streets: horrific, twisted versions of what they once were, or could have been, or what they were meant to be, that is, before being abandoned for something better. They slowly slouch searching for purpose. Longing to be wanted yet at the same time devoid of emotion. Desperately hungering for usefulness in a useless world, the words, once so vigorous, now dead. A million whispers all pleading for help in a million different tongues. Incomprehensible jabber.

It is rumored they wait. They wait for the resurrection. They all carry the false hope, each and every one of them, that one-day they will all blissfully live in a paradise on Earth. Their sentence is eternal.